Alberto 'Crumbzz' Rengifo is one of the veteran League of Legends players in North America and recently re-signed with Team Dignitas for season five, along with being announced as team captain. With a large number of changes coming to the jungle for season five Crumbzz gave us his opinion on the changes to jungle items, monsters and champions. He also shared his thoughts on the upcoming LCS split including the expansion tournament and who will be a top jungler in NA this season.

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Hi everyone, I'm Dig Nightsend. I'm here with Team Dignitas' League of Legends team Jungler Crumbzz. Crumbzz, how are you today?

Crumbzz: I'm doing very well, nice to be here.

We’re going to talk about some of the jungle changes here in Season 5, the competitive season for Season 5, and the changes to the LCS. First of all, jungle items, one of the big things Riot changed with the Season 5 preseason patch. What do you think of the four new jungle items and the four new Smites?

Crumbzz: I really like the idea behind all the items. You have one that's a slow, extra CC and a little bit of burst to your ganks. You have Poacher's, counter-jungling making that effective, or you have the one that pretty much seems to only work on Warwick, you do extra damage per hit. And you have Ranger's and, to be honest, the first three are extremely underwhelming compared to the last one, the one that has an AoE smite, stuns the creeps, heals you, and has a shorter cooldown.

Even though the damage is not that high, it's really all you need. You're just going to be using smite more, and more, and more, and that will allow you to get levels faster. It's really a shame that that one is so much better than the other ones, so I'd like to see them all be buffed. The concepts are cool, just like how there are so many different concepts with Dragon and Baron and what they do, but the numbers aren't there to make the items succeed.

One change suggested was just make it so that smite is always on a 45 second cooldown, except if you smite a champion, in which case it goes on a 60 second cooldown. What do you think of that?

Crumbzz: I think that's still a problem, because what happens is the jungle is so much stronger now, so you need to use smite to kill it. You need to be smiting it to get your levels faster. And you're using smite on that but at the same time you finish your jungle and there's such a downtime that you have to go for a gank. 100 seconds per camp. And then, you don't have smite up because you used it to clear it really quickly. You can't find the right balance between using Smite against a champion or using smite in the jungle and that really puts some champions behind that just can't... like it would be really nice to have a smite slow on certain champions.

Like Fiddlesticks with a back gank would probably be really nice so that you could smite them, slow them and do a little bit of extra burst, but it's just not happening for him because you need that mana regen right? Same goes with other champions. Just a number tweak and messing around with the cooldowns, and maybe like... I haven't thought too much about how to balance it out, but they need to make sure there is a maybe like a gold incentive to smiting a champion.

So you mentioned the changes to Dragon and Baron they did, do you think they're underpowered? They're overpowered? Do you like the direction they're going making it that a Dragon isn't just like taking a turret somewhere?

Crumbzz: I actually really enjoy the changes, the first dragon is the only thing I have a problem with because you have Pantheon soloing it at level two. There are many ways to cheese through dragon and you can pretty much do it at level one because the attack is on such a low cooldown unlike before and it's very simple to dance dragon around and make it deal no damage by confusing it. You do it for free and you get that nice little buff for your team early on. It doesn't really snowball too hard, but I still don't like the fact that you can cheese things like that. Those big objectives for me, I'm not a fan of that type of play.

As the game progresses, all five of the buffs are really nice and it makes the map a lot more dynamic than it was before, "Oh, its 20 minutes in the game, dragon side doesn't matter. We only need to fight baron side, baron's the only thing that matters." Now, every single dragon counts. Like you're behind, we need better waveclear, we need to get the second dragon. Oh, we need to push, we have a backdoor team, we need to make sure we get the fourth dragon. Things like that. And then the fifth one, that's a huge dragon and everyone wants that. It really makes the teams have to think a lot more strategically in their warding in the late game, because it's not just the topside of the map.

One of my favorite changes they made to dragon and baron happens to be that they made baron spawn at 20 minutes, so it now no longer feels like an objective that can be taken in the early game. It's always a mid-game to late-game objective. You really need to be sure and be strong to be able to take it. It's not "We took Nunu and maxed consume, we solo baron". I really like that those buffs are being put in the Dragon and the overall game, every part of the game in the Baron and specifically the late game aspect, and I guess some of the mid-game. And the Banner of Command change, if you have Banner of Command and combo with baron, makes for some incredibly good pushes. If you look at the changes they did with the Dragon buffs with Baron, it seems all of it is a combination to counter turtling, aka like Ziggs or Xerath. You can have a baroned up team with Banner of Command and the cannon minions will take the entire base because your long-range APs can't clear it. It's really entertaining and I think it's a smart idea as how to beat these really heavy turtle comps.

When Riot talks about this change in strategic diversity, which you said you think they accomplished or at least started to accomplish with the Dragon and Baron, you think these niche items like Banner of Command will start becoming usable? You're thinking "Oh they have a Xerath, we need to grab Banner of Command and have this one ridiculous minion taking down the enemy base".

Crumbzz: Oh yeah absolutely, I think it's a really smart idea, increasing the ability to adapt each game further and further with your item selection. Because before, you kind of bought the same items pretty much on every champion. You're an AP mid? You buy Grail, you buy Deathcap, you buy Void. You're a Jungler? You buy Lizard, then Sightstone, and then go tank. AD Carry? Infinity Edge. All this stuff. So now you're like, "They have a poke champion, but they have a long range AD. Maybe we shouldn't get Banner of Command. Let's get something else." As long as that progresses in the right steps, making each game have more item diversity, I think the game will be in a lot better place.

Because it stales out right? It's boring when you're like, "I know what he's gonna buy, I'm not even gonna look at his items." Now it's like you have to press Tab all the time, especially... it'll be really entertaining in a tournament setting where you're the audience and you look at an item and you're like "Whoa. I can't believe he bought this right now! That's crazy, I never even thought he would do that!"

The last piece of the changes to jungling is the champions. Who is going to be stronger? Who is going to be weaker? Right now we're seeing Pantheon and Warwick being really popular picks, do you think there is anyone who is sleeper OP that no one's really playing very much? Any thoughts you have on the champion changes for the Season 5 jungle?

Crumbzz: Right now in the new Jungle, they tried to make the whole map be more alive, be more like a jungle, you're in here fighting all these superstrong monsters, and they are a lot stronger,so you need to prioritize heavy sustain now or champions that have shields or characters with high lifesteal or drain like Fiddlesticks and Warwick. Which those two right now in solo-queue are very strong. And then you also have champions like Pantheon and Nunu. Pantheon has the shield, which with blue buff allows him to practically take no damage from the jungle, and allows for level two solo dragon, which is really broken. Nunu with the consume max.

So a lot of champions that we saw before, like Lee Sin and Kha'Zix don't really have that much sustain - and Rengar as well - so they can't do the whole jungle in one go and just gank right off the bat. Those champions lose a bit in the early game, but there are ways to play around that but they're not as strong in the early game. You still want to play those champions because they're strong, it doesn't matter if they're jungling less effectively in the early game.

Any sleeper champions right now? I'd say that a lot of the Devourer on Ranger's. So you get the Ranger's Trailblazer, which allows you to farm heavily and farm really fast so you get your stacks up. It's kind of the equivalent of what Feral Flare was last split, and that allows champions like Shyvana to be played. Or Master Yi. I don't think we'll see Master Yi any time soon and probably not Shyvana, but I think champions like Kayle can really benefit from it. She used to be a pretty decent jungler, but now with the attack speed and the magic damage on hit right off the bat. You had to charge your flare practically as soon as you finished the item. It's pretty good on her and any other champion you might use that on, like Nocturne. For now, all the attack speed reliant champions might be pretty good.

Champions that I really think are fun and I'd like to make competitive would be Skarner. Honestly, the Battlecast Skarner skin has a big part in that, because I think it's a really nice skin. But I think he's actually pretty good.

One thing that was also discussed was how some junglers in theory could take the blue smite, slowing true damage whose name is escaping me right now, and they could gank all the time. Season 2 or early Season 3 jungling where you gank, gank, gank, you don’t farm and use your smite aggressively on people like Evelynn or Lee Sin. Do you think that’s a viable option competitively? Obviously you starve yourself if you get behind but do you think it’s viable to just gank, gank, gank and try to get all of your lanes far enough ahead that it doesn’t matter or is that style too risky?

Crumbzz: I think that style is obviously focused on heavy snowball where you snowball the game as quickly as possible, get a crazy lead. That’s putting too much into the snowball because it’s so incredibly risky and the rewards can be just as large if you don’t take that smite. You can be ganking just as much with the other one. You don’t necessarily need a smite slow to make your ganks twenty times better.

If you’re getting the gank the smite is not going to be the difference between getting it and not especially in competitive play. You’re getting the gank because you found a better position. If you need a 20% slow to get a gank then it’s probably not the best way to start snowballing a game. I think that’s just too risky, you want to just take the other one and farm it out. Not necessarily farm it out but use it more towards farming.

I’ve seen in solo queue many junglers thank that but so far in scrims and talking to other junglers nobody wants to really bother with that item because it’s such a high-risk high-reward and the damage just isn’t there. Let’s say you get to late game and the AD Carry has a bloodthirster, you can’t even break his bloodthirster shield with your smite. Let’s say a fight happens at Baron and you put your eggs in the smite basket and you have to not use it on the enemy champion, you have to save it for that objective so you have to be careful with that and the lower cooldown on the ranger’s really makes objective games around dragon and Baron a lot easier. And it also stops creep waves with the stun which is really handy.

We just had the Expansion Tournaments for both the NA and EU LCS what do you think about the changes to a ten-team format and, most importantly how does that affect both the LCS and Challenger scene?

Crumbzz: When the LCS was announced to have two more teams the initial reaction that everybody had was “this is a bad idea, the team’s here are barely good in the first place”. “These teams are barely able to make it into the LCS how are they going to compete with the top two?” We thought they’re going to be the bottom teams all throughout, they’re just in it to be last. We haven’t really had a chance to see these teams compete against LCS teams yet so I think that is a little unfair to say just yet but I do think the LCS teams that have been there before like the previous top five, probably top eight this time around have a much easier time in the LCS.

I do think that the last two teams that are arriving to the LCS will have a harder time just because they have more amateur players, less experience, maybe the nerves get to them. After all, most of the tournaments in the challenger scene are online, they don’t have that much LAN practice. Granted a lot of these teams won’t have many nerve problems, you have Team LoLPro I believe that has veteran players, Cris, Impaler and Jesiz on Team Coast. But I think the mashup of these teams, how the players get to know each other and play and get along with each other isn’t at the level that the LCS top teams are going to be at.

I do think that the expansion is going to be the right step for the league, in terms of creating and adding more talent and making sure that more teams can participate and making it more lucrative for somebody looking to get into it. Eight teams sounds pretty exclusive, now you add ten and maybe you eventually you add more, it sounds like something you could do then. You try to make it looks like NFL or something like that, there’s a lot of teams there so you do have a good opportunity of getting into one of those if the chance arises. I think it’s definitely a step in the right direction but I think it’s just a move for the future not something we should be criticizing just yet because it’s not going to start out perfectly.

Along with the announcement that Team Dignitas was re-signing you, you’re also team captain now. We’re talking about coaches being able to talk in team select and they’re officially recognized as members of a team by Riot so how does your role as a captain work along with having a coach?

Crumbzz: Right now we don’t have a coach, so I’m not entirely sure how that would pan out. Before, I would know the majority of the draft we were going to do. You could have asked each of our players what we were going to pick the next day and we could have told you a pretty good outline as to what we want to do and the situation if x happened and we would all be on the same page

I think that adding the coach would be a nice reminder and maybe he can be thinking more on the draft than us. We’re thinking “let’s get ready, be cool, be calm, don’t let outside trouble cloud your mind”, so you can’t actually devote all your thought to the picks and bans while the coach can because he’s going to be a part of it so he can help us out. Yesterday we saw the first OGN match start and we saw the coaches sit in the back of the players talking to them over their shoulder, “do this, do that”, they have their pencils and paper writing things down, noting what would be useful in that first set and second.

I think as it progresses it would be a nice change and once we get some time we’ll say “wow I never could have done this without a coach” but for now without a coach I’m focusing on how to do it on my own, or as a team as a whole, understanding how we want to play the game because we know ourselves better than anyone else. That eventually will be heightened with the addition of a coach but for now it’s just us.

Looking at the junglers in North America this season we’re going to have a bit of a preview at IEM San Jose as far as what this season is looking like. Who do you think are going to be the top junglers this season? Especially in North America but maybe outside of North America, but who do you think is going to be very quick to adapt to all the changes and all the new styles?

Crumbzz: I heard that the more veteran junglers are having an easier time in the jungle now than the up and coming junglers which from my experience in solo queue may be the case but I think that is quite a big statement to make with practically no basis. I think that right now the junglers we’ll see shine are the Cloud 9 and TSM junglers, Santorin and Meteos. I think the one we’re going to see really surprise everyone will also be IWillDominate from Curse.

I think that those three will probably be the best junglers in NA right now. They all have experience and they all really have deep champion pools. They’re willing to take risks with their picks and their play as well and I think that’s going to be paying off dividends in this new split because sometimes you get the feeling that the jungle doesn’t have as much impact as it had before, especially in the early game, so I feel like the players that are willing to take bigger risks are going to be the ones that are going to shine.

Maybe a newcoming jungler that’s going to go completely crazy and do crazy things early would be doing really well but I think that’s probably not going to happen. Especially somebody brand new to the LCS wouldn’t want to go for something that’s absolutely out of anyone’s spot right now.

Do you have any final remarks or shout-outs you want to make?

Crumbzz: Shout-out to all the Team Dignitas fans. A lot of them fizzled out especially since we’re taking so long for the announcement of our new roster. We’re trying to take it easy because we feel like this is the better option for the health of the team, not announcing it right off the bat and creating all these incredible expectations from the get-go and get to know each other. Then from then on start building a reputation for how each player plays not “these are the shows you have to fill, this is how well you have to play, you’re going to be this much better because we were thinking you were incredible back here and you’re going to be even better here”. I think that’s a lot of unfair pressure onto a newcoming player so unfortunately the fans took the hit on that because it’s hard to cheer for a team when you don’t know who it is. Soon it will be announced, so I thank the fans for their patience.